Continuing: Growth Chart

So, continuing on:

These are the grasses that cover the whole bottom of the chart. I think I cut out 5 or 6 of these babies.


This is what it started to look like, laying the pieces down with templates:


Next, I tried my hand at embroidering K and her cute hubby T's initials in a heart on the tree trunk. The wool fabric that we bought wasn't as long as it was wide, so the tree trunk is made of two pieces. I made little rough drafts of the embroidery:





and then the real thing:


It's not the best or the most even. But it sure does look handmade! ;) Just don't look too closely!

Next, K chose a font for the lettering. We went with Baskerville Bold. I printed and cut out the lettering and placed them on the tree trunk. Pretty cute! (At this point, nothing is sewn down, just in place)



I cut out each letter on our chosen pink fabric with my super sharp, super tiny Cutterbee scissors. I ironed on interfacing on the fabric, pinned each letter template down, and then cut out the letters. This took me one whole afternoon!



Next, since I was on a roll with the lettering, I decided to do the numbers. It IS a growth chart, after all! We must have measurement guidelines! So I ironed on interfacing for the dark pink and light pink fabrics, cut out the numbers from the template in Baskerville font, and eyeballed a good size for the dark pink background. Over a couple of weekends, I handstitched the pieces together.



By this time, it's April and my wedding anniversary. We took a weekend trip with our new dog up to a house in the mountains and while we were there, I began to handstitch the lettering onto the tree trunk. What a relaxing weekend! Hunkering down, walks and hikes, bbqing on the patio, movies all night while sewing... *sigh* It took me a few weekends to finish the lettering.



More to come....

Growth Chart: An Introduction

In December 2010, my friend K asked me to create a growth chart for her little 1 year old. I ecstatically accepted the challenge.

In January 2011, we went to a fabric shop and spent a couple of hours picking out the best fabrics for the best growth chart to go with the best pattern she'd found.

It is now AUGUST 2011, the baby is 2 years old, and I'm embarrassed and quite ashamed to say that I'm not done sewing it yet.

BUT.. as an appeasement (to myself, as K has had interminable patience with my haphazard scheduling and lazy ass) I took pictures along the way and can now post a few of them.



The finalized product is about 6 feet by 2.5 feet. The first thing I did was wash the fabrics in Woolite, except for the brown wool. I think wool is dry-clean only, yes? So to be on the safe side, I only air tumbled the wool to freshen it up. After everything was washed and dried, I ironed it all to get nice and flat fabrics. I measured and cut the linen, and eyeballed the tree trunk.





I had made enlargements of the pattern pieces and cut them out, eyeballing the proportionate sizes for the size of the overall chart.



I then added interfacing to all the pieces. Unfortunately, I think I bought the wrong kind; I was looking for double sided interfacing, but only purchased single side. For those of you who know applique, it can be a lengthy process to "turn in" the edges, the traditional, "real" way. Another cheater way is to add interfacing paper, "turn in" the edges, and then remove the paper. I cheated mucho by using iron-on interfacing. Which worked.. except for when it came time to sew the pieces down and the single sided interfacing made my pieces slide around. Boo. I consoled myself with the fact that now it looked handmade and not machine appliqued. ;)



I tested on scrap piece of linen and green cotton fabric for the leaves to determine what stitch to use and the tension/setting to use for the best stitch. I'm still in the process of learning how to use my Singer "Simple" sewing machine that my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday a few years back. "Simple" is relative; and my machinery skills are amateurish at best.





Now, these pictures are dated the end of January 2011. So we have quite a ways to go on this project... It's supposed to kinda look like this:


How's that for an introduction? :)

Goodbye.. perhaps?

You know what they say about clothes in your closet that you haven't worn in, oh, in a year? Yeah. I think this blog should follow that general guideline. Too bad. But I'm lazy and there is way too much to update now that I've fallen so very behind.

And yet... I'm hesitant to close this down altogether... just in case sometime I want to write something.... like on one of those days that I wear that new sweater that I bought 3 years ago....

Spring cleaning

Why hello. Long time no see, my old friend.

So I just re-read my old Wall-e post because I got a new comment posted on it. It really does surprise me when people randomly find this blog. I hardly update it and never have anything substantial to write about. Except for that one Wall-e post. I also find that I can't write anymore. Halfway through reading my post, I thought, "wow this is good, that's exactly how I felt" before I realized I was reading my own post I had written two years ago. Isn't that sad?

My lack of proper use of grammar, vocabulary, and interesting sentence structure can be blamed on the quantity of writing and reading I've been doing lately. One would think that the stimulation would promote creative juices and an intellectual flow of ideas and thoughts. I think I hit that plateau and now I'm overstimulated and overwhelmed. So much so that all the writing and reading has backfired and now I'm one incoherent lump of a student/employee. That's bad!

Life has been interesting lately. I go through bouts of hope and excitement, then suddenly get hit by fatique, annoyance, and my own set of life rules. I hope I'm not bipolar!! ;) No, I'm not, just dealing with a lot lately and having to balance work, school, and life and its upsets wreaks havoc on my grounded nature. If I give a little, I sometimes end up feeling like I'm condoning bad behavior and setting precedences; if I don't give in and compromise my principles, I feel bad and unpopular and wonder if sticking to my guns really makes a difference. I wonder if my principles and life rules make me unapproachable in that others think they will be judged. What is it that they say? Those who critize others are often the most critical of themselves? Yeah, that's me.

I speak vaguely on purpose because I don't want to give any details or examples of what's been causing this undue stress. So let's just think about the positives:

1) Ricklet and I got our refund check from the IRS! YESS!! Time to put that away for Italy, baby! Although I let Ricklet have the state check and he went out and bought new golf irons today. ;) My mother-in-law is right; I do spoil my husband!

2) Fun trips coming up! Napa at the end of the month and Morro Bay in June.

3) I have only 3 more quarters left of school - that's 5 classes! Summer quarter is my last core course and Intro to Databases. Fall is one required course and one elective (I'll be taking Children's Literature - that should be so much fun!) and Winter is my last required course. I'm so stoked! I'll be "degreed" in March 2011 and probably walk in the June commencement ceremonies in Philly. :)

4) I think I have approval for a conference in October in Pittsburgh. Never been to PA before and I'm going to try to get Ricklet to come with me.

I'm also hoping to get some work done on the house. Like unpack. ;) Still have a lot of boxes left, stacked up in a nice little area of the office. Obviously I don't need anything in there, right? ;) I haven't done any crafts or sorted out the wedding leftovers. And the garage needs to be cleaned out. Still have the last few items down there from the old apartment. When I'm done with this quarter in early June, I want to paint or change out some fixtures in the house before summer quarter starts. Somehow the place still doesn't feel like ours even though we've been there for almost a year now. And I can't enjoy it until it feels like home.

Another thing that has been on my mind is babies. Babies! What?! Yes, you heard me right, BABIES! Well, maybe just one baby for now. ;) But Ricklet and I have plans... and babies aren't in the plans for another few years. How do you know when your clock has begun ticking? Because I didn't hear or feel mine start and suddenly it's not ticking anymore, but the bomb at the end of the timer has already exploded! How did that happen without my knowing? I usually listen carefully to my body...

Busy Busy

What have I gotten myself into lately?!

Well, first of all, I got bitten by the travel bug and have this urgent need to book hotel rooms in any location. Let's get a room in the next city! It's just too far to drive back home!

But I seriously need to get cracking on these final papers. I've got one due on Sunday and the other due on Tuesday. And I just started my first one yesterday. Don't even know what I'm going to write for the second one. YIKES! *sigh*

So here's my calendar. I'm such a social butterfly these days it seems.

Tomorrow, March 12: Lunch with Lizzy Lucus and Evie. I met Liz back in my piano-pounding days. We were duet partners. She grew up and got her education in piano performance. I grew up and forgot all about my key signatures and technique. Through the magical world of Facebook, I discovered that Liz was a mutual friend between me and Evie, a girl who works in my building. So that's what this lunch is all about. And baby Madeleine, Lizzy's 2nd child, is turning ONE! Lizzy managed to make it to our wedding and then gave birth to Madeleine two days after!

March 14: Paper due. Also going to California Adventure to redeem the free part of Ricklet's 2fer ticket. Not sure how that will work out....

March 20: Possibly lunch with Viv, who's getting married on the same day as Carli. :) All this Clairbourn activity.

March 27: Bella's 2nd birthday party!!! Gotta help out with the carnival set-up. I think I'm manning the tattoo booth.

March 29: Bella's REAL 2nd birthday! And Spring quarter starts. ;(

April 3: Paul and Sarah's baby shower. *sigh*

April 10: Joey's 1st birthday party, up in Santa Barbara.

April 16: Taylor Swift concert with Carina!

April 17: Victor and Wendy's wedding in Fullerton. Annettie pie's wedding is this day too :( so I can't make it to what I imagine will be the most unique wedding ever with some traditional Armenian flair.

April 24: Glen Ivy! This is our $ saving idea for our anniversary celebration.

April 25: Madeleine's 1st birthday party! Already RSVPed no since it's our anniversary weekend... but maybe I'll change my mind later since we're planning on Glen Ivy the day before.

May 28-30: Carli's bachelorette party in Napa!!

June 13-19: Our annual summer getaway trip. We just decided today to head up the California coast again and do a road trip during single week of my "summer break," up through Cambria and Big Sur to Monterey (just for the aquarium), stopping up and down the coastline for a week. :) At the end of which is the beginning of the Summer quarter. ;(

July 10: Carli and Don's wedding in Sorrento Valley! (and Viv's wedding in Fallbrook).

Gosh. That's a lot of parties and stuff. I don't know when I'm going to have time to concentrate on hardcore stuff like digital library technologies and competitive intelligence. Huh?

:)

Valentine's Day 2010

This post is not actually about Valentine's Day 2010. But I thought it would be better to have a neater title than OMG I HAVEN'T POSTED ANYTHING SINCE OCTOBER?!

But it's true. Egads. Holy what. No post of any substance since the wedding. Oh, the wedding. *tear* I miss wedding planning! Now my life is all about me-time in the car on my commute, and school. It's week 6 of Digital Libraries and Information Services in Organizations. Both have heavy workloads, but the DL class is probably by far the most interesting and challenging course I've taken. Too much to learn and coherently spit back out, and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day for learning before the assignments are due.

Well anywho. There are lots of odds and ends that I could talk about. But then they'd be just that: odds and ends.

So I guess I'll just write down my schedule for the sake of additional content. ;)

Feb. 6: We went to a cute baby shower that had a Dodger theme. There was a cotton candy machine, a popcorn cart machine, hot dogs and nachos and all that. Fun!

Feb. 7: We had a Super Bowl party at our house. Carina and I finished off 2.5 bottles of wine by ourselves. I was feeling pretty awesome until they all left and I laid down. Then I morphed from Mrs. Happy Drunk to Mrs. Hold Your Hair Vomitus.

Feb. 13: Chinese New Year dinner at 4:30pm. You heard me. 4:30pm.

Feb. 14: The "real" Chinese New Year date, but it's Valentine's Day! Also known as VD Day. HAHAHAHA. ;) Not sure what we're doing yet... but probably just having people over to watch the NASCAR race.

Feb. 21: I just bought 6 tickets to the Auto Club 500 at the California Speedway. We're going to get there at the buttcrack of dawn to watch cars go around in a circle for 250 laps of 2 miles each. Awesome. What's really cute is that Ricklet told me he's excited that I'm coming! That really got me stoked! Whenever do husbands want their wives going with them to traditionally "just the boys" events? ;)

Feb. 26-28: Disneyland! This 3 day weekend trip includes two nights (at a hotel that I researched for days that included the creation of an awesome spreadsheet of hotel comparisons that boggled Ricklet's mind) with at 2-fer ticket! The trip itself is my Christmas gift from Ricklet, and Ricklet's Dland ticket is a Christmas gift from my sister! That's really a 2-fer! ;)

March 27: Bella turns TWO on the 29th and we're having a huge carnival themed birthday party!

April 16: TAYLOR SWIFT concert at Staples Center!

April 17: Cousin's wedding in Fullerton. Fullerton? I think so.. can't remember.

April 25: Our 1st year anniversary. I should start planning something now!

Okay, that's far enough ahead. Be back soon(er or later)....

New Projects and Deadlines.. OH NOES!

It's the first rain of the fall season. So far the house is holding up alright, but the skylight drips water every once in a while.

So the place is still unpacked! How embarrassing. So Ricklet and I are shooting for a holiday party to get our act together. And so, a new project is born! :) And of course an accompanying checklist of things to do, in order of importance:

* Replace kitchen sink fixture (it's leaking)
* Organize clothes
* Buy patio furniture cover
* Measure living room, hypothesize largest sectional sofa
* LCD 40"+ and media stand
* Measure dining room; buy dining room set - 6 chairs
* Lights and fans in bathrooms on different switches (3 sets)
* Clean out garage, sweep and organize. Buy garage shelving units.
* Bathroom accessories for bathroom #2
* Bookshelves and carts for craft room

Special subproject, bathroom #1:
* Replace sink fixtures
* Sand and refinish cabinets
* Replace lighting fixture
* Sky blue paint
* Furniture

I'll add more to this list soon.... Time for Beanie's birthday phone call soon... and maybe Dland tomorrow!